Mumbai: Having been dormant for almost three months, Mumbai's suburban trains -- catering only to health personnel on emergency duty in the public and private sectors -- have got the green signal and will be back on tracks on Monday. While the proposal had received approval in principle, all evening the modalities were being worked out. The formal nod, from the Railway Board and the Ministry of Home Affairs, came late at night. Railway officials said they propose to run 346 local trains services, 146 on WR and 200 on CR, all fast trains, with limited halts.
“Nearly 60 percent of the employees to be ferried will be on CR, while the rest are on WR. This is why more trains will be run on CR. For the first time each local train will be operated by two motormen,” an official said. Last Wednesday, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had demanded the resumption of suburban train services in Mumbai for the movement of staff on essential services duty.
On Sunday, there were meetings between the Indian Railways, the Maharashtra government and the local agencies in Mumbai, to finalise the nittygritty of bringing back the local suburban trains. CR and WR together operate close to 3,000 services under normal conditions. The first train -- in the truncated regime -- is scheduled to depart at 5.30am while the last train will leave at 11.30pm. The halts at stations will continue to be 30-45 seconds, depending on the hour of travel. "Our intention is to operate train services at an interval of 15 minutes, as we don't want coaches to be crowded and ensure social distancing protocols are followed," said a WR official.
The railways intend to ferry a maximum of 600-700 commuters per train. As per sources, the state government would have to provide the railways with a list of passengers engaged in essential services duty, to whom tickets will be issued directly, a system similar to that employed for the Shramik Special trains. “The BMC and the state government will give a list of people who will board from each station. We will carry out twopronged checks at stations. We have asked our staff to be ready,” said a CR official.
Under this new arrangement, the state would be asked to give a QR code-based ID card to essential workers, to ensure easy identification. All ticket-checking staff have been told to report for duty from Monday with a QR code scanner downloaded on their mobile phones. “There will be no thermal scanning at the stations, and initially, the state government will have to deploy its staff to handle arrangements at various railway stations. Moreover, the state government has been urged to ensure all those allowed to travel are doing so only after ensuring they are medically fit and do not come from a containment zone,” he said.
